Perspectives Of Girls Research Articles

A six-country study of coaches’ perspectives of girls’ body image concerns in sport and intervention preferences: Template analysis of survey and focus group data

Coaches are a key influence of athletes’ body image, but often feel ill-equipped to address body image concerns and can perpetuate harmful body ideals. Limited research has investigated coaches’ attitudes and beliefs and few effective resources are available. The current study explored coaches’ perspectives of body image among girls in sport, as well as their preferences for body image interventions. Thirty-four coaches (41% women; Mage=31.6 yrs; SD=10.5) from France, India, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States took part in semi-structured focus groups and completed an online survey. Template analysis of survey and focus group data resulted in eight first-order themes grouped under three categories: (1) perspectives of body image among girls in sport (objectification and surveillance, impact of puberty, the role of the coach); (2) preferences for intervention design (content of the intervention, accessibility of the intervention, incentives for taking part); and (3) cross-cultural considerations (acknowledging your privilege, cultural and societal norms). Two integrative themes were defined: (1) girls’ disengagement from sport and (2) the role of community. Coaches perceived body image to be a significant barrier for girls in sport and a need to address this in a formal and accessible intervention.

Queer Voids

Queer Voids

Changes in subdomains of non-organized physical activity between childhood and adolescence in Australia: a longitudinal study

BackgroundPhysical activity (PA) participation among youth tends to be insufficient and is prone to decline with age. In Australia, this decline has been shown to particularly occur in the domain of non-organized PA (e.g. active play and informal sport) between childhood and adolescence. However, information about changes in more specific groupings of activities within non-organized PA (i.e. subdomains) is needed, as this could support more targeted intervention strategies. This study aimed to investigate changes in the duration of specific subdomains of non-organized PA between late childhood (10–11 years) and early adolescence (12–13 years) in Australia, as well as whether these changes are moderated by sex.MethodsData were sourced from Waves 6 and 7 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 3614). Youth time-use diaries (24-h) were used to measure the duration of eight subdomains of non-organized PA at both waves (athletics/gymnastics, ball sports, cycling/motor/roller sports, fitness/gym/exercise, martial arts/dancing, water/ice/snow sports, active play and other outdoor/nature PA). Multilevel mixed modelling was used to explore longitudinal changes between waves and the potential moderation effect of sex.ResultsActive play declined the most of all subdomains (β = –20.5 min/day; 95% CI = –23.4, –17.6, p < 0.001). A smaller decline was observed in the subdomain of non-organized ball sports (β = –4.1 min/day; 95% CI = –5.9, –2.3, p < 0.001). Other subdomains remained stable or had only very small changes in participation. The decline in active play was moderated by sex, with a steeper decline among girls. No other notable moderation effects were observed.ConclusionsFuture studies may seek to explore and test the acceptability of PA promotion strategies to encourage active play participation, such as ‘reframing’ childhood play activities to be appropriate for adolescents. Such studies might particularly seek the perspectives of girls in the transition to adolescence.

The ‘Demand Side’ of Child Marriage

In South Sudan, child marriage is often positioned as a cultural practice tied to conflict and displacement as well as gender norms affirming that girls should marry. Based on findings of a multi-sectoral gender assessment conducted by Save the Children in Rumbek, Torit, Malualkon, Bor and Kapoeta, our paper draws attention to multiple, connected drivers of child marriage. Drawing specifically on findings related to child marriage, we suggest the need to understand child marriage in the context of cycles of poverty and inter-clan fighting. In many communities, cattle form the basis for the ‘bride price’, driving cattle raiding, due to pressure on males to marry. The ability to pay the bride price may be an indicator of manhood in some pastoralist communities of South Sudan. We suggest that while humanitarian interventions tend to fixate on empowering girls or addressing gender norms girls face, less attention is placed on the ‘demand side’ of child marriage – on the gender norms pushing boys and men to marry girls. Our paper emphasises the importance of tackling norms from both the perspective of girls as well as boys and men within a broader context of improving livelihoods in South Sudan.

"Camouflaging" by adolescent autistic girls who attend both mainstream and specialist resource classes: Perspectives of girls, their mothers and their educators.

Autistic girls’ heightened social motivation and associated social coping strategies, such as camouflaging, mean they may be less likely to receive appropriate support in mainstream schools. In this research, a multi-informant approach was used to examine the camouflaging strategies used by autistic girls within specialist resource classes attached to mainstream schools (whereby girls transition between resource classes and mainstream classes). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight adolescent girls, their parents (eight mothers) and their educators (six teaching assistants/aides and one senior staff member) about the girls’ camouflaging experiences. Using reflexive thematic analysis, four themes were identified: (1) inconsistencies and contradictions in camouflaging, (2) challenges of relationships and ‘finding a tribe’, (3) learning, inclusion and awareness and (4) consequences of camouflaging. These results highlight the challenges that the girls experienced when attempting to hide their autism and fit within both mainstream classes and specialist resource classes. These challenges had significant impacts on the girls’ relationships and learning, as well as consequences for their mental health. The findings highlight the need for increased awareness of how camouflaging presents across the autism spectrum and suggests that individualised, evidence-based support will be essential for enabling autistic girls to flourish in school.Lay abstractThere are a range of different types of schools that support children diagnosed with autism, including mainstream schools (where pupils are taught in general classrooms) and specialist schools (where pupils are exclusively taught alongside other children with special educational needs). An intermediary option involves resource bases attached to mainstream schools, which enable children to transition between mainstream and specialist educational settings. Autistic girls use a variety of strategies to negotiate the expectations and demands of school life. One of these strategies is known as camouflaging. This involves ‘hiding’ autism-based behaviours and developing ways to manage social situations, with the aim of fitting in with others. Research has shown that camouflaging can help to meet social expectations and friendships, but it can also result in challenges, including exhaustion and anxiety. In this study, we conducted detailed interviews with eight autistic girls, their parents and their school staff. The results showed that the girls tried to use camouflaging strategies to hide their autism and learning needs, especially within mainstream classrooms. Their camouflaging was often unsuccessful, which affected their relationships and sense of belonging. They also found camouflaging exhausting and distressing, which may (when combined with the demands of the classroom) affect their relationships, learning and mental health. This research provides important implications for supporting autistic girls who attend resource bases. These focus around increasing awareness of camouflaging and ways to support autistic girls, so they are included and able to fully participate and learn within school.

The Girlhood Project

The Girlhood Project (TGP) is a community based, service-learning/research program that is part of the undergraduate course at Lesley University called “Girlhood, Identity and Girl Culture.” TGP works with community partners to bring middle and high school girls to Lesley’s campus for nine weeks as part of intergenerational girls’ groups that are co-facilitated by Lesley students (also referred to as TGP students). TGP fosters the development of feminist leadership, critical consciousness, voice, and community action, and activism in all participants. In this article, we describe how we adapted TGP’s model to a virtual and synchronous platform for students during COVID-19 and supported their learning competencies. We reflect critically on this experience by centering the voices and perspectives of girls, students, and professors.

“Call us by our name”: Quality of care and wellbeing from the perspective of girls in residential care facilities who are commercially and sexually exploited by “loverboys”

In the Netherlands, thirteen organizations offer specialized care services for commercially and sexually exploited (CSE) girls who are underage. Quality and effectiveness of these services have only sparsely been evaluated, while existing quantitative measures of treatment success mainly include the perspective of professionals. As a result, minimal insight exists as to whether current practices are sufficiently tailored to the needs of CSE girls. We carried out an ethnographic Participatory Health Research project with the objective to gain insight in CSE girls’ care experiences needs, and understand what they think contributes to good care. We worked with 27 girls from three residential youth facilities using a range of creative methods. Girls discussed their need for privacy and self-determination in a highly surveilled environment that aims to shield them from exploitative relationships with boys and men. Protective rules and measures impact their ability to build trusting, reciprocal relationships with group leaders, as well as their opportunities to make mistakes and learn without consequences. Girls wanted care that centered on their individual needs, and did not see their victimization as defining those needs. They called for group leaders to be responsive to their sometimes conflicting values by providing both a protective and autonomous space for care delivery. Navigating this complexity is a balancing act for professionals caring for CSE girls. The perspectives reported in this paper will be integrated in the measurement protocol of a broader N = 1 effectiveness study.

Historicising Child Sexual Abuse in Early Modern and Modern India: Patriarchal Norms, Violence and Agency of Child-Wives and Young Women in the Institution of Child Marriage

Although child-bride harm was uncovered during the Age of Consent controversy (1890s), no attempt has been made to excavate its origins in Indian history. Rectifying this void, I investigate the phenomena of child sexual abuse in early modern and modern regions of Bengal and Maharashtra. I adopt a female-child-centred approach that involves engaging with the perspectives of girls and young women. Some questions raised are: Did a girl have rights? If so, how was her freewill visualised by the state, law and popular culture? What can we glean from women’s discourses through historical time on pre-pubertal sex, conjugality and child-marriage and how are they different from official discourses? In order to cast light on an obscured subject, I widen the archive to include an analysis of devotional poetry, bardic literature, personal narratives, royal chronicles besides, the more conventional media reports, religious and medical texts. The essay reveals how religious punditry combined with the state and popular culture to produce a convoluted concept of female agency that authorised girl-bride sexual abuse in child marriage. The study finds more continuities than breaks in the prevalence of child-wife abuse within the institution of child marriage from early modern to modern times.

Perceptions of friendship among girls with Autism Spectrum Disorders

ABSTRACT Friendships have a central importance in childhood and adolescence, and the friendship demands on girls with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be higher than for boys. Few previous studies have examined the experiences of friendship from the perspective of girls with ASD. A qualitative focus group methodology was used with ten adolescent girls with a confirmed diagnosis of ASD. The results indicate the high importance of friendship to the participants, with themes emerging about friendship establishment, how friendships transcend contexts, the experience of conflict in friendships, and friendship loss. The role of social media and mobile phone use on friendships was also examined. The themes that emerged in this study concur with, and elaborate on, the emerging literature on girls with ASD. The risks to friendships of school transitions and weak texting skills both emerged as potential targets for interventions to support girls with ASD during adolescence.

Girls’ perspectives on the ideal school playground experience: an exploratory study of four Australian primary schools

ABSTRACTBased on research conducted as part of the Sydney Playground Project, this paper provides an exploratory investigation of the perspectives of girls relating to the ideal school playground experience, and whether their perspectives are influenced by a loose-parts playground intervention. The focus is on the play behaviours of 22 girls aged 8–10 years, from the perspective that school playgrounds are generally designed in ways that are more suited to the play behaviours of boys. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of children’s drawings, interviews and focus groups, exploring meanings associated with desired play experiences. Findings indicate that girls’ views of the ideal school playground are influenced by the geographies of the spaces they play in, and that girls highly valued changes provided by a loose-parts intervention.

Psychosocial Perspectives of Girls and Violence: Implications for Policy and Praxis

Psychosocial and feminist criminologies produce a complex etiology of adolescent female violence, and advance understanding of much female behavior that juvenile authorities formally address: mental health disturbances. When girls’ violent behaviors are considered within a psychodynamic theoretical framework, policy problems are dramatically redefined, resulting in a reformulation of the social problem, newly contextualized, and the collective responses to the troubled girls it has defined. This paper places known etiologies of violent behaviors, including case study material, in a context of extant social policies that impact and determine the social location and control of violent girls. We argue that efficacious policy responses would be psychosocially informed, and focus upon a more holistic mental health praxis, rather than criminal justice practices alone.

Contextualising the sexualisation of girls debate: innocence, experience and young female sexuality

This paper aims to contextualise debates on the sexualisation of girls by providing ways of interpreting it from different perspectives – including the perspectives of girls themselves. Asking not are girls being prematurely sexualised but how can this debate be understood as a feature of time and place and how does it relate to the lives of girls as they approach puberty and their first sexual experience? In a parallel approach to other commentaries on sexualisation, the paper takes a deconstructionist approach to recurrent themes of the debate such as the ideal of childhood innocence/protection, to provide an interpretive lens for understanding the emergence of a public concern that places girls at the centre. In doing so, the paper considers four ways of looking: the impact of second-wave feminism; the increased sexualisation of culture; the erotic potential of girls; and the lived experience of girlhood, as perspectives offering some explanatory power for present times.

Sex, Postfeminist Popular Culture and the Pre-Teen Girl

In recent years, the proliferation of sexual content in popular culture accessed by pre-teen girls has drawn widespread debate and concern. Largely absent from the discussion thus far have been the perspectives of girls themselves. Cognisant of the knowledge gap, in this article we investigate pre-teen girls’ accounts of sexual content in a widely used popular culture form: a girls’ magazine. Their accounts are viewed through the lens of recent theorization of postfeminist sexuality discourse in popular culture. Our analyses of girls’ (11—14) focus group discussions identified the Australasian magazine Girlfriend as a postfeminist sexuality resource about diverse sexual practices, boys and safe sex. Girls variously located themselves within its postfeminist sexuality discourses as sexually sophisticated and knowledgeable and on occasion outside of it as sceptical critics. We suggest that while postfeminist popular culture may open up possibilities to be sexually savvy girls, the ‘price’ may be intensification of (hetero)sexual self-surveillance and responsibility.

Girl Soldiers and Human Rights: Lessons from Angola, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Northern Uganda

The issue of child soldiers has become an issue of global concern. More than 250,000 soldiers under the age of 18 are fighting in conflicts in over 40 countries around the world. While there is ample descriptive evidence of the conditions and factors underlying the rise of child soldiery in the developing world, most of the literature has portrayed this as a uniquely male phenomenon, ultimately neglecting the experiences and perspectives of girls within fighting forces. Drawing upon the findings of three studies funded by the Canadian International Development Agency's Child Protection Research Fund, this paper traces the perspectives and experiences of girls as victims and participants of violence and armed conflict in Angola, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, and Northern Uganda. The three studies collectively reveal three salient themes. First, whether in the heat of conflict or within post-war programming, girls are, for the most part, rendered invisible and marginalised. Second, in spite of this profound invisibility and marginalisation, girls are fundamental to the war machine—their operational contributions are integral and critical to the overall functioning of armed groups. Third, girls in fighting forces contend with overwhelming experiences of victimisation, perpetration, and insecurity. In the aftermath of conflict, girls arguably bear a form of secondary victimisation through socio-economic marginalisation and exclusion, as well as the ongoing threats to their health and personal security.

Missing Stories, Missing Lives

In this critical ethnography, interpretivist methods were used to focus on the perspectives of African American, Latina, and Native American girls in an urban middle-school classroom to better understand how they constructed social identities of gender and race through their experiences with literacy. Because the enacted curriculum lacked critical awareness of the sociocultural contexts of gender and race, the perspectives of the girls in this classroom were largely missing from transactions with literacy. Consequently, girls' efforts to make intertextual links to their own lived stories were not taken up in meaningful ways. Transactions with literacy created a felt sense of fractured or compartmentalized social identities, and the girls in this study learned to separate their public, academic lives from their private lives. As a result, the girls did not take up the literature in ways that could potentially enable them to realize social and cognitive transformation in their lives.

Can Single‐sex Classes in Co‐educational Schools Enhance the Learning Experiences of Girls and/or Boys? An Exploration of Pupils' Perceptions

Abstract The introduction of single‐sex classes within co‐educational schools is a strategy adopted by some schools to enhance the learning experiences of either the girls or the boys depending upon the educational climate of the time. In a period dominated by the ‘what about the boys?’ debate, this strategy is currently being introduced and advocated in a number of schools in an attempt to raise boys' achievement. This article explores the value of introducing single‐sex classes within co‐educational schools, and in doing so, it draws upon the perspectives of girls and boys involved in one such initiative. The article concludes that girls‐only classes may have positive effects for girls. However, curriculum‐as‐usual boys' classes do nothing to challenge the problematic macho male cultures inherent in schools; indeed, it may be the case that they actually exacerbate them.